Saturday, March 20, 2010

Kill The Bill CODE RED Coverage (UPDATED)

My FMJRA Round-Up is going to be delayed today because of the rapidly changing health care coverage.

I'm going to be updating this post through the day on developments and I know others will be as well. I want to point you first to, of course, Stacy McCain who has Smitty "on the ground" (lordy I hate that expression!) at the Code Red Rally in Washington. Watch Stacy's place for updates, too.

The Corner, as always, keeps thing pretty up to date also. Kathryn Jean Lopez reports this morning of a potential collapse of the Stupak deal which can either be good news or bad news. Either he's holding his ground, or she already has the votes and doesn't need to dally with him any longer.

K-Lo also reports that "Stupak swingers" who might need phone calls right about now are: Kaptur of Ohio, Berry of Arkansas, Cueller of Texas, and Rahall of West Virginia. If you live in their district, call them!

Berry (202) 225-4076

Cueller 202-225-1640

Kaptur(202) 225-4146

Rahall (202) 225-3452

The Hill's latest Whip Count is here. Numbers of those we need to keep calling can be found here.

Whip counts vary depending on who you ask. Fox News had it at 214-217, in favor of Pelosi, a little while ago. Firedoglake has is 202-209.

Michelle Malkin has updates and also the list of amendments to the Dems bill that Pelosi wants debated and voted on before tomorrow. The Rules Committee meets at 10 a.m. this morning and Michelle reports that Pete Sessions will be live tweeting from there. The Rules Committee meeting will also be on CSPAN 2.

Rep. Bart Stupak will have his press conference this morning at 11 a.m. ET.

Stay tuned for updates.

Update 10:08: I'm watching the Rules Committee. Rep. Paul Ryan is such an awesome speaker and champion for this fight! He is going head to head with Rep. Slaughter right now and is not backing down one iota. She's arguing with him about Medicare and whether or not his plan phases out Medicare. She's uninformed and not really interested in the answer to the question she's posed as she won't let him answer. He's holding his own though.

She insists that Ryan's plan "does away with Medicare and leaves people with a voucher" to go find their own coverage "if they can."

Ryan: "I realize you want to talk about somebody ELSE'S bill rather than your own legislation and I understand that!"

The Rules Committee is in recess at the moment. Pelosi is still blustering and says she will have the votes when she comes to the floor. I guess that means she doesn't have them now.

The Corner reports that " the Majority are working on an executive order with Stupak-like language in an attempt to pacify pro-life Democrats."

Update 11:56: Here's an email comment I just received:

I have met people who lived though the nightmare inflation in Germany in 1922. It really took a suitcase full of german marks to buy a loaf of bread. The price of lunch in a cafe went up before the customer could finish it. When the money ran out the government simply printed more of it. We seem to be headed down the same road. We are making a mad dash toward socialism and financial ruin.

No argument here.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin posts on the possible executive order in the works.

At the Code Red Rally, crowd estimates vary from 20,000 to 30,000 with more coming in.

Keep up the heat!

Update 12:08: Fox News has a great livestream of the Code Red Rally here.

Here's some pics from the Rally:

Update 1:05: Daniel Foster points out that military plans may not be covered under Obamacare unless some bureaucrat "deems" it an acceptable plan. Yikes.

Update 3:46: I had to step away for a bit to do the daily check-on-mom thing, and to put on a pot of homemade chicken soup because I feel like holy-crap-warmed-over. Chicken soup with lots of garlic and pepper always helps. At any rate, in my absence I see that Demon Pass has fallen by the wayside. Here's Ed Morrissey on that:

So what does this mean? Hard to say. It could be that the heat on Democrats for using DemonPass made it too difficult to hold onto votes; Pelosi may have calculated that she’d net more votes if she split the bills properly. On the other hand, it could also mean that Pelosi has all the votes she needs and no longer needs the self-executing rule to get the bill out of the House.

If anyone wonders which it is, Major Garrett of Fox News helpfully tweeted that he believes that Pelosi now has the votes for tomorrow. If that’s too pessimistic for you, remember that DemonPass was intended to protect Dems opposed to the Cadillac Tax and other issues in the Senate bill. The politics of the bill have only become more fraught since they floated that strategy, which could mean that Democrats now think it won’t pass — and need a reason for its demise other than a failure of Pelosi to whip the count.

Buy Me a Beer!

I am a Conservative writer and high school English teacher in Shreveport and also work as a free-lance proofreader. I've been published at The American Thinker, The Shreveport Times, The Bossier Press Tribune and had photographs published in Bayou Bucks magazine and other local publications. I like dogs better than most people.